December 25, 2005

Blogs Being Ripped Off

We're all being ripped off. Om. Me. Tom and a host of others. It's called plagiarism. Read Om's post first though, then read the comments.

While I can't go into Kinkos and copy a page in the newspaper about a friend's daughter (who is also an agency client of mine) someone can easily lift and rip off a blog's RSS feed and run it on their site without permission. That's a crime.

The former (Kinkos) is more than likely a case of misunderstanding regarding the right of "Fair Use Copyright" while this obvious rip off of Om and all the rest is a clear cut violation of the DMCA and can end up costing the author, their company and the ISP big dollars according to some sources.

Let's all do our part this Christmas Day to say Bah Humbug to all those in the food chain, including the ad supporting engine that's helping to fuel this plagiarism based industry.